The weary travelers on a 20-hour journey home because the original direct flight was cancelled.The amazing four-hour lunch at the George Blanc in Vonnas.One of the multiple amazing (half!) desserts at the amazing four-hour lunch at the George Blanc in Vonnas. Touring Bernard and Anne's magnificent new home in Coligny.
Window shopping at the art galleries in the Place de Vosges.

From the Frankfurt airport

We’re waiting for our flight (more on this later) so I’ll take a quick minute to catch up our blog.

On Thursday, Pops didn’t feel well, so Bubbie stayed at the apartment with him, while Lenny, Marina and I went out to explore more of Paris. We started at the Pompidou Center – for a description, read Marina’s terrific blog entry. After lunch, we walked around the Place de Vosges, one of my favorite places in Paris. It was a good choice because it was raining, and we were able to stay under the covered arcades.

We returned to the apartment for a rest, and to check in on Pops, but ventured out again at dinner time. We walked through the 6th and into the 5th so that I could show Lenny and Marina a little bit of the Paris night life. In the 5th, we wandered through the narrow streets where dozens of restaurants are located, with each one having a guy out front competing for your attention. We selected a restaurant of regional specialties, splitting a fondue, a savory crepe and a magret de canard salad. All was delicious.

We then went to the Notre Dame Cathedral where we had seen that there was a show every evening, but it was a disappointment. Instead of a grand opera spectacle, it was basically a slide show about the history of the cathedral. Next trip, we’ll do better on getting some live entertainment.

On Friday we hopped a small plane to Bourg-en-Bresse, where we met up with our friends Bernard and Anne to celebrate their anniversary. They all were waiting for us at the tiny airport, and then we followed them to the magnificent 3 star restaurant Georges Blanc. We then had one of those amazing meals that you will never forget in your lifetime … course after course of absolutely divine food, all matched with perfect wines. Marina surprised us by eating absolutely everything, including the foie gras.

Most surprising was the dessert. First, they brought the “pre-dessert”, which was three small dessert tastes for each person. Then they brought trays of small pastries and chocolate truffles. Then they actually had the nerve to bring a dessert menu and ask you to select something in addition (this is all after the multiple appetizers, the main dish, and the cheese)! Len and I just couldn’t manage it, so we asked to split an apple pastry, but the folks there just simply couldn’t handle that, so they brought us each one anyway. The service was superb, as was the ambiance and the many friends we were with.

We then quickly toured Bernard and Anne’s new house in the French countryside, dashing to get our plane back to Paris. All in all, quite a day.

This trip has been so perfect, that we just had to have one disappointing day, and we are now in the middle of it. We left our apartment this morning at 7:30am for an 11:00am flight, only to find out when it was time to board that it was cancelled. For some reason, we were not immediately rebooked through Chicago, as it seems was everybody else, and we found ourselves without any alternatives, with the staff telling us that there were no flights out of Paris for TWO DAYS. Finally, after probably an hour of waiting, they managed to reroute us through Frankfurt and Washington DC. We’re now in Frankfurt, having gone east instead of west, having started the day eight hours ago, but now being further from home.

-- Donna

Donna and Marina getting some illumination from an exhibit at the Pompidou Center. The "Gong Man" -- see Marina's blog entry.
An outdoor animated sculpture water garden near the Pompidou. The contrast between old (background) and new (foreground) is a Paris theme.
Marina posing with the "beta test" for the Statue of Liberty.
The Pompidou contrasts just a bit with its neighbors.
The Parisian Italian lunch with (on the right) Gardner, Corey and Karen.
Marina becoming part of a sculpture again.

The museum of modern art (Pompidou)

Yesterday, mom dad and I went to the modern art museum. This museum looked very strange from the outside. It had pipes on the out side, the escalator was on the outside where you could see everything and every one from the top of the building. We got there at least a half hour early. So, to spend our time wisely, we went window shopping. Mom took us down a street that she had never on. When we got back, there was a huge line of people waiting to get in the museum. Mom said we could just skip that huge line and go right up to the front. That’s because we had museum passes that got us through the lines quicker. That was just the best part about going to museums.

This modern museum is huge! It has about four floors, plus a restaurant and nice views of Paris. We went up to the top level. That is where all the modern art is. The art is very strange and some of arts are disturbing. There was this one piece of art where a metal headed guy was sitting down, in front of him was bell that dangled down to about where his forehead was. Every 7 minutes or so, the man would bang his head against the bell and it would make a very loud sound. We waited for a while for the guy to bang his head because mom was determined to see this quick action happen. She gave up after a while, went to see something else. One minute later man bangs his head on the bell. We missed it happen. That’s ok. At least we heard it instead.

Then w went into a room that was very dark. It had very interesting sounds and pictures of random things. A man was in a very weird looking outfit, and it looked like he was meditating in the water. I watched it for a while. The guy eventually went up-side down, and the water was swirling around him. I guess that man got crushed by the water because he disappeared when he went off the screen. That’s when I left that place. I was getting very scared anyway.

Next, there was a movie that we all watched all together. This movie had no sound. It was interesting. A man was in a room, and was painting the walls and the floor. He was trying to paint himself into a corner of that room. When he finally got the corner that he is standing in and can’t get any more of the floor, he goes out a secret door that you cannot see, and paints the rest of the corner that he stood in. The next time, he enters in the same door. This time, he does it, he paints the room another color. This time it was a different color. Mom thought that he painted the room a different color each day of the week. It made us all laugh. I would most definitely say that we had a great time there in the museum of modern art.

~ ~ marina ~ ~

Marina posing like Degas' "Little Dancer". 

The stained glass windows in Sainte Chapelle are amazingly large, unlike those of older medieval churches. 

A couple of the great Notre Dame gargoyles. (Marina wants you to know that they are really rain drainpipes.) 

A trip to Paris is not complete without a tour of the underground sewers. The ladies found the odor less than appealing. 

One of the many tunnels, with cleaning equipment. 

The new Holocaust museum in Paris ("Memorial de la Shoah") is extremely well done. It's also an archive, a library, and a study center. 

Yesterday we started with a tour to Vaux-le-Vicomte, a magnificent chateau on the outskirts of Paris. The guy who built it, Fouquet, was the finance minister, and seemed to do quite well by touching the money as it went by. Fouquet used all the most famous architects and designers of the day. The king, Louis XIV (the Sun King) liked the place so much, he hired all the same folks, who then designed Versailles. We chose V-le-V because we figured it would be less crowded than Versailles, which indeed was true. It’s quite a stately place, with one amazing room after another, capped off by wonderful gardens (I wish we would have seen them with the fountains working).
In the afternoon, we separated. Marina and I went shopping (we each bought a dress for her bat mitzvah party), Lenny went to the science museum, and Bubbie and Pops went to get Bubbie’s hair done. Everybody returned triumphant to a light dinner in our apartment with our French guest, Guy.

Today we toured the Musee D’Orsay in the morning, the phenomenal museum crafted out of a former railway station. It houses all the famous impressionist paintings. Marina particularly liked seeing the Degas art and statues that she was familiar with.

We met with our friends Gardner and Karen, and Karen’s niece Corey, for lunch and then Lenny, Marina and I joined them for one of my all time favorite tours in Paris, the sewers. We kept the subject of the tour a secret from Karen until the last minute (we just told her we were going to see “les egouts” … she thought it had to do with shoes). She was quite shocked when she realized where we were!

Although the stench was a bit strong for our tastes, it is absolutely fascinating to see how a city of this size has evolved in figuring out how to bring in fresh water, and how to get out the dirty water. Before the sewer system, everything was dumped into the Seine river, which was a very bad system, generating lots of cholera as well as pretty foul air.

Lenny, Marina and I stopped in the St. Chappelle church with its stupendous stained glass windows. The church is small, narrow, and very high, showing off its colorful windows full of biblical scenes. We then met up with Bubbie and Pops at Notre Dame, where we strolled through with the thousands of other tourists anxious to see this impressive church. Marina wanted to climb to the towers, but there was a long line, so we settled for seeing the gargoyles from the ground.

We stopped for a Berthillon ice cream on the Ile St. Louis before splitting again, Marina coming home with Bubbie and Pops. Lenny and I continued to see the new Holocaust Museum, which included the story of the French deportation, the Vichy government collaboration, and the French resistance. The museum was very well done, so we spent some time going through the thorough exhibits.

-- Donna

Vaux le Vicomte from the front. It looks a little shabby for a castle, but wait... 

One of the many modestly-appointed rooms. 

The back yard. I don't think they mow the lawn themselves. 

From the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, with Paris in the twilight below. 

Birthday dinner #3, at the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. 

Donna and Marina at the base 

Winged victory of Samothrace, one of the great surviving masterpieces of Greek sculpture. (Well, not entirely surviving.)

Don't these look fake to you? The real ones are probably hidden in the basement.

What's the big point here, anyway?

The famous IM Pei pyramid entry to the Louvre 

Notes to blog readers:
- This blog is now big enough so that the older parts are not on the first page. To see them, click on the archived months in the left column.
- I'm having trouble uploading photos at the moment. I think it's a blogspot.com problem and I am switching to Hello for the photos. That means they won't be embedded in the blog text as they have been.

The Louvre, a boat trip, and another birthday dinner

My first birthday treat yesterday morning was to wake up to a huge rainstorm. You might think this would disappoint us, but we actually were thrilled, being convinced that the rain would take away the intense heat and humidity. Indeed, by midday the sun came out and the weather was spectacular.

We toured the Louvre in the morning. Fortunately we had purchased museum passes before we left, which meant we could skip the long line leading into the pyramid. We convinced Bubbie to use a wheelchair so we could get around more easily, which led to several amusing moments where we found ourselves at a dead end at some hall, with stairs to the next room but no elevator. At these points, Bubbie would get up, walk up or down the stairs, and Lenny and I would carry the wheelchair. Not exactly the point, I know, but it worked for us.

Of course, there is more to see in the Louvre than one can see in a lifetime. We focused on seeing the Egyptian, Roman and Greece sections, including the winged victory of Samothrace. Then, of course, we went to see the Mona Lisa, in her recently-opened new room. I’ve never seen such tourist madness before. The very large room was packed with tourists, all holding their cameras above their heads, to try to take a picture of the diminutive famous painting by Da Vinci. We all can’t quite figure out why she is so special.

We walked through a few of the renovated rooms of the museum with oftentimes the rooms being even more spectacular than the art. Particularly amazing was the crown jewel room which was filled with painted ceilings, portraits on the walls, sculptures all over, and lots of gilding. And the jewels themselves weren’t bad either!!

After a quick lunch, we took a boat trip on the Seine. The sun had come out, so our timing was excellent, and we enjoyed the hour tour as a way to see the city without a lot of walking.

Our dinner was at Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower. We had a spectacular birthday meal, with one course better than the last. We had a window table (thanks to Guy!) and enjoyed a perfect view of Sacre Coeur. Marina gave me a cook book by our favorite author, and Lenny gave me a jigsaw puzzle made out of a photo of the three of us. I can’t believe they schlepped gifts to Paris (only to schlep them home again)!

Marina, Lenny and I walked the platform of the tower, while Bubbie and Pops waited below (see Marina’s description for more details). The tower is now lit up at night with sparkling white lights – quite stunning.
-- Donna

Marina's report on the birthday dinner

Today we went up to the Eiffel tower of France just to go to dinner. It is for a great cause. Mom’s 50th Birthday Party. It was a beautiful view of the city and mom showed me where all of the good shopping center of the city were. She showed me where she used to live and how it was so convenient to get around town. We were the first people to get to the restaurant. There were some people who were not dressed up as fancy as they should have dressed. This was a very nice restaurant, too. Bubbie said that I dressed as I should have. I was proud. I felt so grown up in my out fit. They dinners were just fab. The meals were cooked just how we liked them. I had the best charley temple of my life. It was nice and sweet. The fish that I had was just great!

I had tasted other people’s food, because I had not gotten a second course. As I was going around the table tasting food I was criticizing the tastes and what the exact detailing tastes were. Mom thought it was funny, since she was the one who said that if you’re a food critic, you have to be specific about the taste and if there is anything wrong with the taste, you tell them in a firm voice.

After dinner, me, mom, dad decided that we should go out the top of the tower. Bubbie didn’t want to go because she is afraid of heights and was scared that she was just going to fall off. We went without them. The minute we got out there, a big gust of wind just swept right by us, and our skirts went flying upward. We all wanted to go to the top, but there just a big line to get there and we didn’t want to wait in a line like that. Lenny took lots of great pictures of the views. Then we just had to go inside after a while. We couldn’t stand the chilliness anymore. Then we had to go back out in the coldness just to get a cab to take us back to the apartment. We actually took two cabs. None of the cabs had five seats in them. Three of us in one cab, and two went the other. Our driver had no idea where our apartment was. So Pops gave him and sheet of paper that told him how the get there, instead of speaking to him in French. This dinner was the best I have had with my family of all years. I’m sure it was for mom, too.

~ Marina

In Paris

July 3 Sunday

Yesterday it was sad to leave all of our friends in Italy, particularly since we had to get up ridiculously early in order to catch our flight.

We had a smooth trip to Paris, and arrived at our apartment. It’s a touch disappointing, particularly after the fantastic villas. Mostly I regret that I didn’t make sure that it had air conditioning because it’s somewhat uncomfortable given the heat. The fans help, so it’s not unbearable, but AC would have been better! It’s also a bit small of rooms – it’s an apartment rented by someone who lives here and uses it a lot, so their stuff is all around. And it only has one toilet …. for the five of us … quite a hardship for us spoiled Americans (and apparently the subject of a nightmare Bubbie had last night). But the apartment is in decent shape, with modern kitchen and bathroom, and it’s in a fantastic location.

We took a walk around the neighborhood to find a place for lunch, rejecting the café across the street which was quite unappealing, to settle into a much nicer café on the Blvd. Montparnass.

Later, Lenny and I went out to a lovely outdoor French restaurant (Le Pre Catalan) in the park for our 5th anniversary dinner. We surprised each other with a “happy anniversary card” … and it turned out we had selected the same card for each other! Guess that means we truly do belong together. The meal was sensational. We didn’t actually order that much but a lot of food seemed to keep coming.

This morning we got up and walked to the local organic market which was filled with beautiful fruits, vegetables, baked goods, meats, fish and various products such as preserves, honey, shampoo and even some clothing (not sure what was organic about the clothing).

On our walk back, I swung by my old apartment to show Lenny where I had lived.

Then we all ventured out to take the RER (the city train) to get to the lunch location. (If you’re reading this and wondering if all we do is eat, let me assure you that that is entirely correct.) Our lunch location was on a small island in the middle of the Seine. We had a giant upstairs table with a view in both directions of the gardens, and thankfully a breeze coming through them much of the time. This short lunch lasted only four hours, with champagne at both the beginning and the end! I got to hear “happy birthday” in both English and French, and was thrilled to share my birthday with good friends from Europe, who came in from all over the continent to be there.

After returning, Lenny, Marina and I ascended the Montparnass Tower to see a terrific 360 degree view of Paris. It’s still hot and a bit hazy, but it was great to see the city from so high up – it gives you a good sense of where everything is.

-- Donna